Posted on 02/28/2008 5:18:16 AM PST by Buffalo Bob
Honda Motor Co. plans to stop making motorcycles in the United States next year and transfer the work to Japan, pulling the plug on its first U.S. plant.
The 330,000-square-foot (30,657 sq. meter) Marysville, Ohio, plant, built in 1979, turns out large Gold Wing touring and VTX cruiser motorcycles. The work will be shifted to a plant in Japan that can produce bikes more efficiently.
The Ohio plant employs 450 workers. Honda said there will be no layoffs when production ends in spring 2009. The workers will remain with the company, helping produce cars, trucks, engines and parts and filling other jobs at Honda's operations in west-central Ohio, the company said.
"There were a lot of people who felt disappointment," said plant manager Jan Gansheimer, noting that many employees are motorcycle enthusiasts who have spent much of their careers at the plant. "There were some emotional considerations."
But realizing it was a business decision and knowing they would not lose their jobs made it easier to accept, she said.
Last year, the plant produced about 44,000 Gold Wing touring and VTX cruiser bikes.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
I find it difficult to believe that it is cheaper to make and SHIP them from Japan.
I’d really like to have my PC800 back. Always preferred it over the GW.
I find it more difficult to believe that the weak dollar doesn’t force them to keep production here.
The 81-82-83 GWs were broundbreaking machines. Like you said, they last forever.
If robotic assembly is the key, why not just bring over a shipload of robots? I guess either way, humans in Ohio would not be building bikes.
There are rumors that they will assemble the second-generation Honda Fit in North America, so getting more component production here in North America is even more important. Already, Honda is starting up a new engine assembly line near their Alliston, ON assembly plant that will soon build the i-DTEC clean turbodiesel engine for North American-market vehicles.
I remember reading an article in Car and Driver or some such comparing a 1980 Honda GoldWing to a 1980 Honda Civic. Both had the same retail price.
Honda may shift policies when the rats take control. Card check legislation is likely to lead to unionization. I do not think that Honda will accept unionization in the long term. I would not blame them. If unions are forced on them, they would better to move the work. The rats better be careful about their policies. They will bite their members in the behind.
They’ll move to Mexico before they accept a union.
The 'rats will also try to make American manufacturing shoulder the cost of complying with "global warming" treaties.
they don’t need to go that far-Alabama (Mercedes) or South Carolina (BMW) would probably love to have them relocate to their states-without the dark cloud of a unionized work force hanging over them.
I own a 225 horse Honda outboard, made in one of Honda’s Ohio plants. It runs like a Dream...
I don’t think the Yen has moved all that much against the dollar as the Euro has so if they build them more efficiently in Japan that is probably why they made this decision. Much of the Euro’s rise is because it is a reserve currency like the dollar which the Yen is not. The Euros value is to a large extent because money is like any other commodity which would mean the law of supply and demand kicks in. There is more demand for the Euro.
The $ has not dropped against the Asian currencies like it has vs the Euro ones. That’s one of the reasons inflation hasn’t been outrageous. The Yen is about the same as it was 5 and 10 years ago.
I’ve always liked what the japanese OB manufacturers-Honda and Yamaha have done with their HP:weight ratios. Mercury and OMC were left in the dust when the japanese starting producing higher hp outboards.
The motor is on the back of a 26 1/2 foot three-log pontoon boat. It will do 55 mph.
that’s pretty interesting. That’s moving right along for a pontoon boat. (I’ve got a “classic” 1979 26ft Trojan Cruiser)
55 with the top down. With the top up, its 50 (and even then I think its gonna rip right off...)
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